Monday, January 14, 2008

Sisterhood is greater than tribe

Coming back to work there are tons of 'post-election crises' meetings to attend. At each one there's a different take on what the way forward is. To their credit, the people at these meetings represent diverse constituencies of Kenyan men and women, so I suppose one could argue they represnt the wishes of their constituents.

At one such meeting of women's organizations, I was saddened but not very surprised by the underlying tensions and unspoken angst about the tribal issues which lie at the heart of the violence in Kenya at present. I refuse to accept that the killings and destruction going on are not fuelled by long standing tribal suspicions and animosities. Even when the media says 'a certain community' is camped out somewhere at this or that police station, they can't cover up what we all know as Kenyans, this ongoing strife has strong tribal undertones.

So at this meeting, although an agreed upon position was arrived at, it still did not identify what role women could play in long term dialogue about the tribal divisions and suspicions which have reared up post-27th Dec.
Instead we all chose to cover it up and hastily depart back to our own corners to inevitably continue stewing in our tribally charged thoughts.
I thought to myself, how can we as women say with one voice that we condemn the violence, while at the same time choose not disucss the causes that have led us to this point. Women have been largely victims in this violence, but there are images of them also looting and I have heard accounts of how some of them have encouraged their menfolk to commit violence against another tribe. One woman told me how her neighbour spends the time taunting those who are not of her tribe. This woman told me that she has seen women taking and looting property from their neighbours' houses after they were chased away. The same woman spends the night wailing loudly at every sound, because she thinks young men from another tribe are coming to retaliate against her and her tribe! In the morning she's back to her taunting game.

How can women work with others to craft a new look Kenya in the coming months and years, where tribe is not the basis of discrimination and violence? Not all women are going to be peacemakers during this period and the women's movement must recognize and address this. It's not enough to call for peace, when in our own hearts, sisterhood is not our reigning agenda. When sisterhood is just a work thing to be set aside once we get into our private space.

Sisterhood has to drive the agenda of women's groups that seek to contribute to the final peace, justice and reconciliation agenda for Kenya. The post-election scenario is a truth seeking time for the Kenyan women's movement. This period will be a make or break time. The Movement has previously been openly divided on rural/urban; tribal and resource lines, this is the time to lay those ghosts to rest and chart a way forward that's truly alternative and different. It is not time to parrot back the patriarchal,tribal and political lines being put out by political leaders and others. To arrive at a point where the Movement's goal of equal rights for women; to articulate an agenda for women's empowerment that goes beyond the mainstream rhetoric of revolution and change, the Movement has to peel back the layers of past schisms and candidly discuss them in a way that moves their discourse forward. It will not help to silence the voices that wish to do so, by labelling them tribalists or machines of this or that political party, without giving them an opportunity to say their piece.

The Movement now more than ever is in need of uniting voices; personalities that respected and respectful; women who are not afraid to call a tribal spade a tribal spade.

Otherwise we risk just sweeping all these negative feelings under the rug. Then what happens to the women constituents we represent.

There is no hierarchy of pain and loss in this crises. The woman who lost a child is in the same pain as the woman who gave birth to a child in an IDP camp! I am utterly bewildered, actually angered by women who seek to paint the situation of their constituents as hierarchically more important than that of another! There is no hierarchy here ladies! It's about rising above this hierarchical thinking and speaking out against injustices being meted out on women. Our affiliations to the cause of the women's movement should be greater than that towards our tribe or political party.

Until we can really get to that point, our discussions will continue to yield little more than band aids to a larger, festering wound.

So I say to those saying there can be no peace without justice and reconcilation, that for women there can be no peace until we embrace sisterhood. Then, our solutions will be aimed at alleviating the pain of all women and by extension their communities rather than women from our own tribes or class or race.